Saturday, 2 January 2016

Celebrity Demeanour?

I purchased ‘The Argumentative Indian’ recently.
Here is my feedback. I hope you’ll find time to read through this, and I’ll be
extremely happy to receive a reply.

With regards

K R Lakshminarayanan

Thoughts on your ‘The
Argumentative Indian’

The book is monumental in its effort, terrific in
its approach, stupendous in its research, awesome in its content, complicated
in its treatment, severely complex in its exposition, forceful in its argument.
After going through its pages, I realized I could appreciate someone’s work
without fully understanding it.

To my mind, however, it lacks three things:

1. Your perspective on the argumentative tradition
excludes (ignores?) the Southern Indian contribution.

2. More importantly, more fundamentally, the content
and its presentation lack simplicity and directness. The book is so scholarly
that I get only a general drift of the ‘argument’ though I must say I do
possess a fairly good mastery of the English language and can fairly follow a
serious analysis.

The demands the book makes on me are beyond my
reach. Your lexis, syntax and content are so heavily pregnant they require
constant verbal and mental gymnastics, which is tiring (and can become a
tiresome exercise with time). The implications arising from the smooth blend of
your thoughts with those of others’, which occurs at almost every statement,
slip through my fingers at every step I take. Probably, you were so taken up
with the ‘issues’ that it may not have occurred to you that readers like me,
who are not as enlightened, may want to read the book, understand its essence
with and enjoy it through all the attendant paraphernalia.

The quotes, which are one too many I’m afraid,
mystify rather than simplify or clarify. Of course, the choice of how you wish
to express yourself is solely yours; you could’ve been yourself but, you
could’ve spoken as you, but. Yet you have chosen to engage yourself in the webs
of multitude of scholars and thinkers and have thus become a willing prisoner
and consequently become delightfully incomprehensible. The ‘educated’ me feels
glaringly ‘un-read’, helpless, inadequate. The reading is more a three
hundred-and-odd-page struggle than an enjoyment, the statements and assertions
being far too abstract.

So, the implications (understand and enjoy)
inherent in Bibek Debroy’s wish—‘every Indian should read this book’
(printed at the back cover of the Penguin 2005 edition)—which must also be
yours as well (why would you otherwise have the content printed)—may not be
realised in its entirety.

3. Most importantly, most fundamentally, the book
leans and draws heavily on the heavy-weights. Theories and concepts abound
but visibly absent are the key roles of
the translator—the common man reflecting these through spontaneity; of course
history is replete with instances that reveal ready responses to calls—cultural,
religious, social and political with the attendant ills, taboos, superstitions.
Is it because the common man doesn’t traverse the realm of ‘ideas’ (only
through which Sen has planned his grand tour)?

These observations of mine may not be, I suspect, a
lone cry in the wilderness. Or for
that matter they can be mine alone.

A few years earlier,
I had a similar experience with another Professor, this time in person—Prof. Braj
B. Kachru, a noted Indian linguist, living in the USA.

A grammar very Indian

A noted linguist you are

a reputed scholar you are

in a far-away foreign land

you’ve made your home

proud I’ve been, seeing

an Indian making a name

you’ve done India proud

never did I imagine

I’d see you in flesh ‘n’ blood

but I did!

never did I imagine

I’d be listening to you live

but I did!

jump for joy I did

in an international conference

in 2006

on English grammar

at Salem, Thamizhnadu

a thought or two of yours

had occurred to me, too

as the theme of my presentation

‘A case for Indian grammar’

at lunch break introducing myself

extended a copy of my ‘paper’

you passed by

without so much as a nod

without breaking your stride

crumpling and stuffing it

into your coat pocket

confess I do—

a tad disappointed I was

hope I did

you’d look at my paper

at your leisure

perhaps you did

perhaps you did

(printed I had

my email address)

perhaps you meant to write

perhaps you did mean to,

I’d like to believe

neither gain nor loss

there was

leave Salem I did

satisfied,

made I had, like you,

a strong case

for a grammar

very Indian.

This appeared
in an anthology entitled ‘The Melodies of Immortality’—a collection of poems
presented at the 54th All India English
Teachers’ Conference conducted during December 2011 by Dr Vijay Kumar Roy, Head
of the Department of English, SRM University, Modi Nagar, Ghaziabad, U.P.

About Me

I hail from Thamizh Nadu, a Southern state of India. I speak Thamizh, Thelugu, English and Hindi.

I served for 43 years as a teacher of English in schools and colleges in India, Ethiopia and Nigeria. I've published several articles on ELT and of general interest in the USA, Ethiopia and India. I've presented several papers in national and international conferences. I've written several course books for the English syllabuses of Bachelor of Engineering of Madras University, Anna University and JNTU, Hyderabad, for public consumption as well.